Health Patterning Methodology
In Health Patterning the focus is on teaching with a focus on meaning, wholeness, and well-being of people as unitary human beings meaning that we are whole and cannot be separated into parts. The focus is not on labeling, diagnosis or pathology, nor are people cases to be managed, as in case management.
The major processes of Health Patterning are:
- pattern manifestation knowing – discovering “what is” going on in the person’s world and what the person wants; and
- voluntary mutual patterning – the process where the therapist/teacher assists the person to freely choose with awareness ways to participate to make happen the changes they want to happen and to enhance their well-being by focusing on intention, aim, and direction with no attachment to outcome.
This method of working with people is a two-way process, where participation of both client and therapist is acknowledged and appreciated. It is also important to note that even though the two processes of the method are listed separately for the sake of understanding, in truth they are operating simultaneously, in much the same way as people cannot be separated into “parts” since in truth there are no parts. The method requires the therapist to have no investment in people changing in a particular way, but rather guides people to discover whether they are making choices without being aware or feeling free to choose. People may be, and often are, participating in creating what they don’t want. The therapist doesn’t “fix” the person who, after all, is never “broken” even though that may be their experience. Nor is this a cookie-cutter approach and there is no replication. Creative and imaginative use of knowledge is required in this practice method where the nature and process of change is explored.
One of the myriad ways to participate knowingly in creating change is to act intentionally. In the Health Patterning method the person and the therapist engage intentionally, yet without attachment to the results. Webster’s (1970) says “intention implies little more than what one has in mind to do or bring about."
Posing the question “What do you want?” as an initial inquiry helps the therapist to align with the person’s intention in order to enhance power through facilitating awareness, choices, freedom to act intentionally, and involvement in creating change, in relation to whatever the person wants to happen in the therapeutic work. After all, it is the person’s concerns that are the focus for the Health Patterning process. Following up with questions such as “What choices are open to you now?,” “How free do you feel to do what you want to do?,” “How will you involve yourself in creating the changes you want?” will likely bring forth thoughts, feelings, and actions that facilitate moving in the direction of the person’s intentions. Asking people to entertain new possibilities may open new vistas and call for a review of beliefs that are hampering specific changes. Then Health Patterning modalities, specific ways of helping people participate in creating change, may be useful and often serve as the framework for designing a person’s individualized Power Prescription.